A Charmed Story - Part Nine:
I, Myself And The Elders
Chapter 10
"Do you think we should try something?" Veronica asked. Nicki kept looking into the void. She was having the worst year ever, all the time suffering that way for Steve. It was clear she was in love with him. If she had had any doubt, now she was sure... But love brings happiness and sadness, too. Good and bad moments. And this was one of the worst.
Instead of her, it was Mike that turned to the girl: "Of course you should do something! You are witches, aren't you? We can not leave them like that! I'd go if I could, but I am useless!" Nicki and Veronica looked at him worriedly.
"You are not useless, but freaking out does not help us," Veronica answered, as calm as she could. Michael stared at her angrily. "I know what you are thinking about, but Mike, you don't know anything about this world. Our men are there too, and they are suffering, don't you think we also wanna do something?" Nicki nodded, shivering, as Mike listened attentively, somehow crossed.
"But look... All those Elders are missing, and the Halliwells too, and the world has never been in such a danger before. Do you think we are helpful if we just go after them and fall in the trap?"
Mike swallowed: "You are not helpful if you just stay..." He took little Wyatt in his arms. The boy was pulling his trousers and crying again.
"We can wait until we know something else," Veronica said in a determined tone.
Nicki closed her eyes: "Can't we try to contact them? Somehow...? Actually I can..."
"No," Veronica said, "you always need a long time to recover after you do that. We can wait, they'll find a way to let us know."
Mike growled in frustration, but when he was about to add something, Wyatt said: "Chris does not cry... He does not hear me..."
The three faces stared at the little child in Mike's arms. "Can you repeat that?" he asked, nervously. Which Chris was he referring to?? The baby?? Or the adult one?
But Wyatt was weeping even more now. "Chris does not hear me... I can't hear him..."
°°°°°°°°°°
Chris and Steve hurried through the dark world. Steve was really fast on his feet and Chris struggled to follow him, while his shoulder still hurt like hell. There were surly some bones broken.
"Steve we can't run away!" Chris yelled. They could hear Rhashirk's footsteps in their back, clearly not far away. He was following them.
"Steve? Where the hell are you going?" Chris's Elder-senses told him that his friend was kind of out of his mind, he was close to an emotional overload, caused by that place and his memories...
He wasn't sure if he could walk around there, like Steve did, after all his friend had gone through. Steve had told Chris a lot already, so the Elder-witch knew what his friend had to deal with at that moment.
"I'm going to his layer!" Steve shouted back over his shoulder.
Chris sighed. He needed to stop his friend. They should deal with the demon first, as long as they were able to. Because Chris could feel his powers turn weak. He didn't know why, maybe it was this plane, but he could feel it.
"Can't you feel it? We're losing our powers bit by bit..." he yelled. "Steve, you have to feel it!"
But suddenly Steve stopped. "What the hell?" Chris asked nearly running into his friend. Then she saw it too...
Three wolves stood in front of them, their deadly eyes focused on them, their prey. They were lusting for their meal... some fresh humans...
°°°°°°°°°°
Bianca's eyes were still focused on her girl. She was everything to her, and now Hope was in that cage, without moving. Tears streamed down her face. She felt so much fear... She had been afraid before... when Chris left to the past, when she nearly died, when she found out that she was pregnant... but all that was nothing compared to the fear of losing her little baby-girl.
"She'll be alright," Elenia said, knowing exactly how she felt.
But the Phoenix didn't pay attention to her. She just kept her eyes focused on the little girl's body.
"Don't you think you should explain some things to us, before talking like a psychologist???" Cole asked still waiting for an explanation from the Elder.
Elenia turned her face back to him: "What do you want to hear? Yeah, Steve is my son. I left the Elders for being able to give birth to him... but when the double demons attacked all of us, I had no choice. I had to go back to them to be able to help you..."
The sisters looked at her with a mixture of confusion and not-understanding. But Cole just looked angry: "You left him for being up there? Why didn't you came down to him once in a while, like Chris and Leo? And where have you been when..."
"Cole! That's enough!" Odin said energetically. "You have no idea what Elenia has already gone through. And believe me, she will sort the things out with him when this is over. But that's something between them, that's none of your business!"
°°°°°°°°°°
Michael, who had finally sat down on the ground, hugged the little boy desperately. Wyatt was repeating that he couldn't feel his brother anymore, and that scared the man to death.
Veronica and Nicki just looked at each other, scared like he was. There was nothing they could do.
"What if we try to summon them?" Veronica asked.
"And then?" Nicki shot back hysterically. "Rhashirk will be here in a minute and who knows what he has already done to them... What if they wouldn't be able to fight for us, because WE can only hardly defend ourselves against someone like this. We may all be good witches but we don't have any active power."
"You have telekinesis," Veronica remarked.
"You have?" Michael asked surprised. He had met the young woman a few times, but never noticed her using that power.
"No... Yes, actually I can move things with my mind... VERY SLOWLY... It's too weak to use that in a fight. Especially against someone like Rhashirk." Veronica sighed. Everyone kept silent for a while.
Then they heard someone knock on the door.
KNOCK!!! KNOCK!!!
The girls looked at each other while Michael hold the little boy even closer. "Who could that be?" he asked.
"I don't know..." Nicki said.
KNOCK!!! KNOCK!!!
Veronica stood up: "I'll go and check this." Nicki wanted to stop her but she was already in the hallway.
She and Michael tried to hear something of the things which were spoken outside, but they couldn't. Anyway, it seemed, that it wasn't anything dangerous. Then Veronica returned... followed by another woman.
"ANGY!" Michael exclaimed kind of shocked. 'What is she doing here?' he thought.
The woman waved her hand shyly. "Hey," she said.
Nicki looked at Veronica. The witch shrugged and sat down next to her friend again.
"Am... Am I disturbing you guys?" Angela asked blushing a little.
"No... no, of course not," Michael said, "it's just... what are you doing here?"
She sighed and looked at the girls. Nicki avoided her look but Veronica shrugged: "Oh we would leave you two, but at the moment we really shouldn't separate because of... our demon of the week." She grinned but then felt a punch in her side. "Outch," she glared at Nicki who gave her a warning look.
Angela sighed and went over to her husband, kneeling down next to him. "I'm sorry," she said. "When you were gone I had a lot of time to think... about all that, about what happened. And... maybe I was a little fast with my judgement." Michael wanted to say something, but she didn't let him. "No Mike, I know it was that way.. and I'm sorry. I know how much Chris means to you, I think I just needed a moment to understand that... I love you, and when that means getting involved in that magic stuff, than may it be." She sighed.
Michael just looked at her, not knowing what to say. He loved her so much, so endlessly. He just caressed her cheek lovingly with watery eyes and then kissed her passionately. "I love you so much, honey," he said than.
"I love you, too," she answered. Then she looked around. "So... Where is the rest?"
°°°°°°°°°°
"Don't move..." Chris muttered, feeling the tremor in Steve's muscles when touching his shoulder.
"Don't move?" was the sarcastic response. "What are we supposed to do, let them eat us?"
Chris ignored Steve's bitter words; he just fixed his eyes in the legs of the wolves, feeling their breath so near, hearing their angry growls. "Don't look in their eyes. That's like a defiance," Chris went on, trying to think fast. His arm hurt so much... He could not think in that state! But time was working against them...
"Chris... They're gonna attack." The growls were more and more intense and one of the wolves stepped forward, opening its mouth widely enough to show them their sharp fangs.
Suddenly they heard the clasps of hands at their backs. "Nice lesson, young Halliwell. You should have studied biology, instead of living in the world of magic." He made a signal with his hands to the wolves, and they sat on the ground, more quiet now. "That would have saved your life!" Rhashirk exclaimed, throwing the Elder-witch against the bushes telekinetically.
Chris screamed in pain as his shoulder hit the floor, and tears wetted his eyes. This time it was broken for sure.
Steve opened his eyes widely as well as his mouth. He turned to look at Chris, and then the wolves and Rhashirk... and panic invaded his whole body. He swallowed: "Don't dare to touch me."
"Or...?" Rhashirk smiled.
Steve looked to Chris, desperate. The young elder was trying to recover. He tried to heal himself, but it didn't work. His shoulder and arm hurt like hell, he even thought he'd pass out, but he could not do it... He took a deep breath and taking the paper out of his pocket with the sane arm, orbed it to Steve's hand.
"You're not gonna get what you want," Steve was saying to Rhashirk, when the paper appeared in his hand. He looked at it, and then to Chris, trying to hide it. They had to say it faster this time, but before he could start, he saw that Chris was also hiding something in his hand and reading from it.
"Here our voice, here our cry..."
Suddenly Rhashirk turned to him furious, and raised his hand, starting to strangle Chris telekinetically.
Then, Steve understood: That was a manoeuvre of distraction, Chris did not have any paper at all. He quickly opened his own paper, as he heard nervously, how Chris choked, and how Rhashirk made fun of him. "Stupid witch, trying again? Do you think you're fast enough?"
"...witch and Elder begging to the sky..."
Chris took his hands to his neck, scared to death at the disagreeable feeling of not being able to breathe, when Rhashirk let go off him to look at Steve, in shock, as the young man went on.
"...stop this threat, stop his magic..."
"Are you kidding me?" Rhashirk threw the young witch flying against the trees. "Do you think I am an idiot!!" he exclaimed really angry, approaching the boy, as Chris was still trying to breathe. He closed his eyes trying to remember the last part of the spell, since Steve had the paper. He just had to...
"...strip from his powers the demon Rhashirk. "
He opened his eyes and looked at him. He was not sure if it would actually work. They should have said it together. But they had done, in a way... And Rhashirk was so blind by the fury that he had not even realised he had finished the spell. He crossed his fingers, still breathing heavily, and his shoulder giving him the worst time of his life.
Meanwhile, Rhashirk approached Steve fast. The young man had just recovered the consciousness and tried to put some space in between. He was trying to find the paper to finish the spell, but he had lost it after falling. His scared eyes crossed with Rhashirk's.
"You're gonna pay for this..." The old demon said as Steve closed his eyes, in fear.
(Chapter 10 written by Belén and Chrissy.W.x)